The X Files :: The Lake Peary Mystery
by MekQuarrie
Summary: Here's the first half of the story starting with a collation of the first flash chapters with a few little extras/spelling corrections for the determined reader.
1. Chapter 1

**Count to Zero**

"As long as it can do a word count, I'll be happy" said Mulder. He had been persuaded, against years of elusive practice, to prepare a report on government-accepted UFO sightings. Stuck in the back of a small field office in Denver, he tapped away enthusiastically at a keyboard.

He was assisted, or hindered, depending on how you viewed it, by an intern called Archie. On the first day, Archie leaned over the desk every few minutes to ask if he wanted for anything.

"Hey, Fox? Need a coffee?" Archie looked hopeful, like a fluffy pup eager to retrieve a stick.

"No thanks, Archie. I brought my own." Mulder raised his enamel cup, a navy surplus item, sloshing a tiny amount of the oily content. His thermal flask stood innocent and grey at a precarious lip of the generous desk.

"That looks fancy," Archie leered. "Where'd you buy that?" He leant forward to sniff the cup boldly.

"I didn't buy it. I brought the beans back myself from South America. A little trip I did a few months ago."

"Hey cool. Not many of us Feds get to do that sort of travel though. Eh, Fox?"

"Sure. If you're an extra-special Special Agent, you might get sent anywhere. Why don't you go ahead and call me 'Mulder'. Alright, Archie?"

"Sure, Fox. 'Mulder' it is. You can just call me 'Archie'."

"That's fine with me. What are you going to specialize in when you become a full-time Federal Agent? Eh, Archie?"

"Well… Mulder, I rather like those cold case files. You know? The ones where the forensics just didn't exist. Everything was about old-fashioned investigation. Foot-fall. Door-knocks. Hunches. Clues. Gut instinct. Judgments from the heart."

"Oh, yeah. Those days." Fox wrinkled his top lip. "Yes, Archie, those days must have been hard."

For all his intentional interference, Archie was the go-to guy for the office automation. Mulder was naturally suspicious of all technology, except perhaps his cellphone, and had spent most of his career with 'dirty boots', what proper investigators liked to call the result of proper searching in the undergrowth and proper finding in the mud. But when it came to the arch-nemesis of the paper-jam or the dread toner refill, Archie was the ultimate fixer, efficient, quick and self-rewarding. Archie even fixed up his new best-buddy with some time on the dedicated word-processor.

"Do you want me to show you all the features?" Archie quizzed, lclearly relishing an opportunity to show his indispensable knowledge. "You can get bold type, make a table of authorities…"

"No thanks," said mulder. "I'm sure that will come in handy one day, but this week is about getting thee words on the paper." He added "As long as it can do a word count, I'll be happy."

Archie nodded sagely and gradually bothered Mulder less as the week progressed, trading this lower face-count for most valuable office-player points.

"What were your conclusions, Mulder?" Archie requested on the final day of the placement.

Mulder had hoped to sneak briefly into the field office; pick up the giant bound report from his desk in-tray, walk up one flight of stairs, and drop it into the in-tray of the Section Chief on the floor above. He planned for this all to be completed surgically, in and out in less than thirty minutes. Then he planned to fade away from Denver without telling anyone, maybe a quick train trip up to a ski resort in the mountains and some drinking in the quieter taverns.

Mulder had checked out of the motel with little fuss and parked the rental in the dusty lot behind the small Federal office building. A quick nod to the shift-change security had allowed him swift ingress to his office and sight of the prize. The printed-out document had, like a dozen other reports sent to the secretarial pool, been bound with glue and covered firmly with a heavy card paper which approximated ancient vellum or leather. There was a nicely weighty eagle seal press-stamped into the otherwise blank cover. Mulder lifted the report with satisfaction and felt the weight. He did not have any sense of caring for the contents which he knew were light-weight, obvious and superficial, but it marked a slight body of knowledge which could only create useful thought processes and discussions. It was the ripples of irritation which satisfied him. Weighing it in his hand it occurred to him that it might go astray at the very first instance due to its lack of a title on the cover. Although it was not unusual for a federal document, particularly one with secret contents, to have blank exteriors, some sort of handle or attachment to the real world was required. He walked back into the office to retrieve a blank sheet of paper, a paper-clip and a marker. To his surprise, Archie was walking round the desks distributing a mixture of documents to the in-trays. Although Mulder did not dislike him, Archie was likely to eat into his minute-by-minute schedule. But so be it.

"Hey Mulder," Archie piped up, surprised. "You don't need to be in this early. I thought you weren't looking for promotion?"

"Ah Archie. You'll be the boss of us all one day," Mulder fake-smiled. "I'm leaving right now and just had a few things to tidy up. Good to get a chance to say 'good-bye' to you though."

"Sure. Let me help you there. Do you want a cover sheet for that document? If I'd thought about it, I'd have got the girls in the pool to type one out for you as they were gluing the thing together."

"That's the kind of thinking that will get you out of here and onto those cold cases Archie. But I got it. I'll pin this on when I get to the sub-director's office. Good-bye."

Mulder offered his hand. They shook hands briefly, Archie mumbling a muffled 'cheers' before continuing with his distributive duties.

Then, over the next three minutes, Mulder mounted the stairs, marked up the cover-sheet, clipped it on to the report, and left the report in the in-tray. By noon he was up in the hills with the trails. By the end of the day the director had reached the fifth bound report of the day. He wondered briefly why it contained only blank paper and had no cover sheet then returned it to the typing pool as surplus.


	2. Chapter 2

**Flashback**

Dana felt like she had been here before. She had, of course, sat in the coffee shops around Metro Center on many occasions. And she had become used to clandestine meetings in quiet offices and disused warehouses. But today was a combination of a secret meet in a very public place. That was unusual, but had happened to her once before. She was still reflecting on that meeting when her contact Carlos Pérez arrived.

"Hi there. Doctor Scully, of course?" he blinked in the sunlight. "Let me get some drinks and we'll talk."

Pérez returned with ornate coffee and pastries. Dana ignored the cream-crowned items and took only the plainest drink.

"I'm sorry if I'm taking up too much of your time," he started. He had the mildest of Cuban accents. "We can agree this really quick."

"I am in the middle of a conference, Doctor Pérez," she replied politely. "But some of us still believe in fresh air."

He laughed mildly. "You can't beat the great outdoors. I am a bit of a bird enthusiast myself."

"Well, I'm sure there are people who can show you the Chesapeake Bay if you have spare time."

"Ah yes." He smiled, clearly not having considered such an option, which in itself was not unusual for most of the metro-centered population. "I will make a note of that for a future occasion. For now I find myself very busy with FEMA duties. I'm only passing thru today on my way down to the Gulf of Mexico. I have a clash of assignments which I need to resolve quite quickly."

Dana's interest was taken by this busy lifestyle which seemed a larger reflection of her own.

"If I can help you out I will, but you must realize I have my own assignments at the Bureau to deal with."

"Ah yes," he smiled. "This may be where you can be of most assistance to me."

Dana began to think that this may be more than a little exchange of information or a setting up of a meeting; the conference was full of such little link-ups. But this increase in the level of importance was also a warning to her. It would be best to be as neutral as possible in her responses.

He stirred an extra sugar into his grandiose, overflowing coffee. "Are you familiar with cryptids?"

Dana's face fell flat. "Modern myths. Wild cats in the hills and apes in the trees. Near to fiction, but believable enough to fall into the realms of scientific investigation."

"Yes. I see we arrive quickly at the point." He smiled. "My duties in the south prevent me from taking on an assignment further north. I am the medical lead in a latent mega-fauna case that just became interesting."

"Mega-fauna?" She almost laughed aloud. "Are you looking for a giant bird? What has that got to do with me?" Subconsciously she reached for her purse and shifted in her seat, near to leaving.

He raised his palm in a placatory manner. "Of course not. That would be absurd. You are a busy Special Agent and accomplished doctor. I would not want to insult you with…" He paused to try to be clever, but finished limply with the words "… a wild goose chase."

He produced a small folder filled with newspaper clippings. He pushed it eagerly over the table to Dana like a little boy with crumpled wild flowers picked from the road-side.

"I'm not sure I have time for a veterinary case, Dr. Pérez," she tried to conclude.

"But Dr Scully - Dana – you're an acknowledged expert in unusual field autopsies and related procedures." He reached his conclusion a little earlier than he had intended. "You're not only the best replacement for me on this task, you're the best person overall for the job."

"Flattery is not enough," she replied. "Where is this 'non' goose chase?"

"It's a lake in Canada. Not too far north. Not too cold at this time of year. In fact it's got a great little micro-climate. There have always been historical reports of lake monsters in Canada, particularly since the 40's, but the native Canadians – what do we call 'em? 'first nation' peoples – have stories about a fish or a lizard, sometimes a turtle, in the lake which eats cattle or the occasional passer-by."

"Am I looking for the Loch Ness monster?" Dana asked scathingly. The purse was now over her shoulder.

"No. of course not," Pérez reassured her. "But there has been recent evidence of attacks on local livestock. Quite badly damaged animals which you can understand are a little upsetting to law enforcement, the chamber of commerce, the tourist board. Maybe you could help us identify the source of the problem?"

Now, Dana was intrigued. She was familiar was livestock mutilation and the associations with extraterrestrial activity. Such damage could usually be explained away by natural (or teenage) phenomena. In fact she had written a review chapter in a colleague's textbook. It might be useful to make her own study and publish a few papers on it; maybe even her own publication.

"How much time would I have to spend on this?" she inquired, a shade of interest flickering across her face.

"I guess two weeks would be the maximum. Some of the sites are a little far apart from the main settlement, but if you wanted to do all the autopsies in the town, that would make things easier for you." Pérez was talking quietly without panic. He had achieved his result, obtained his agreement. He smoothly produced a second folder, trying carefully not to create a lot of noise which might steal his victory from him.

"The first folder is just some background, newspaper clippings, sketch maps and a few notes from local law enforcement. The second one is some open travel documents, permits for your weapon, references and a copy of the title page from the legacy FBI file. You can pull the original when you next pass by the Hoover Building.

When Dana saw the title page and the original file reference and the bold 'Unsolved' stamp she realized that she had not stumbled across the case, the file had found her.


	3. Chapter 3

**Under**

His finger was cut, the controls were cold. Was he going to sit at the bottom of the lake for good?

Through the tough plastic glass, Vauxhall watched the streams of tiny dark fish swirling around the static form of the submarine saucer.

"How is everything, Mr. V.?" crackled the radio. Vauxhall sometimes marveled at how this piece of technology a from Victorian times – little more than a coil of wires - often proved sturdier, more robust, and more reliable than some of the slicker bits of kit crammed into the tiny vessel.

He bumped the 'speak' button with his clenched fist. "The boat's intact." He realized how light his voice was, barely adding the words to his heavy breathing. "A bit bashed up, Weed. Like myself. Should have been strapped in, but we got a hell of a bump."

From the other end, the Texan, Allbright, pulled things together. "We've got your location and the depth, sir. What's the location like?"

Vauxhall turned his head around in the bubble window stretching his neck liking a chicken waiting to be dispatched. "She's tilted up the way. I can see the surface at about forty-five degrees from the axis. Could be boulders sitting on the top hull of the boat."

"We're reading the telemetry up here. The internal pressure seems to have increased a little. Something might be squeezing the hull."

Vauxhall sat back in the control chair, his breathe slowing. "Give me a couple of minutes. My hands are all cut. I had to brace against the tool rack."

Allbright cut in curtly. "Do you need medical help? It'll be a few hours before we can winch you up."

"Don't worry, old chap," Vauxhall replied. "I've got some painkillers in a packet here. Should be enough to last me until you get here. I'll flip a few of the instrument switches when the feeling comes back."

Vauxhall swallowed a few of the dry tablets. A padded water bottle contained a finely balanced sports drink for sipping during each underwater sortie. But at that particular moment, salty water was not what he wanted. There was plenty above him waiting to burst in.

"What happened chief?" Allbright quizzed. "The water should have been pretty clear at that depth."

Vauxhall could see the onboard computer sending little flecks of information up to the command ship, hopefully reporting that all the systems, electrical and mechanical, were functioning properly.

"I don't know about clear; the amount of algae and plant life is very high. The view is mostly murky green from the portholes. Still bright. A lot of sunlight getting down here. And a lot of little fish."

"Did you hit something… organic?" Maybe Allbright had not paused before saying that last word, but every second seemed to be lengthening. "A plant? Or a… fish?" There was that non-existent pause again.

The blood on Vauxhall's knuckles had started to dry, but the muscles were still stiff, jarred to the point of breaking by the sideways shunt. He angled the big knuckle of his middle finger and punched the square plastic switch marked "O2". The small numbers on the tiny linear display read "08%".

"Oxy is at zero-eight percent," he communicated, flatly. There was a hiss before Allbright replied. "We see that on telemetry. Plenty enough for a couple hours, sir."

"If I switch to second oh-two, will that increase the pressure inside? Would that be a good thing, or a bad thing?"

"Hold on, sir." Allbright's transmission went silent. Counting to one. Counting to two.

"Sir?"

"Yes."

"Sir. Yes. Affirmative on the pressure increase. Wait a few minutes until he hull pressure stabilizes. We'll see how solid it still is before we adjust anything."

Vauxhall paused for his own second or two. "Okay. Yes, affirmative."

"The saucer hit something jagged when I was ascending. We were only doing about eight knots, but there was a point impact on the port side, just above my left shoulder. We started to spin and I lost control. We wedged back-end-first into these rocks. I think when I tried to shake us free, a bigger boulder must have rolled onto the top."

"We'll send down Stokes with a hook and a light. Maybe she can kick off anything that's holding you in. We'll tow you and the saucer up from where you are."

Vauxhall thought briefly about donning a suit and leaving the saucer, but he could barely lift his arms, let alone pull on a full set of diving gear. Maybe – as a last resort – he could put a breathing mask on his face and ride an air tank back to the surface. But that was a last resort. For now, all was calm.

No risk of the bends anyway at this relatively shallow depth. They were only about fifty metres under at this edge of Lake Peary, which some of the American drillers still liked to call one hundred fifty feet. No-one in the science world called it twenty-five fathoms, which was a shame, but Vauxhall knew that money called the tune, and – indeed – all the musical notes too. He would have preferred just to be an adventurer in a bell, trapped at twenty-five fathoms with no way out and a slim chance of rescue. But even in this claustrophobic reality, he was little more than a researcher, delayed at fifty metres, waiting a few minutes for a ride home.

"Okay, Weed." Vauxhall pressed the call button. "Get Stokes to drop in. Tell her not to disturb anything if at all possible." Stokes was astonishingly careful.

"We'll see what can be done, Mr. V." Allbright replied as if ready to bring things to a close. "Our priority is to get you and the old girl up in time for tea."

Vauxhall smiled at the patronizing joke. His back catalog of salty sea tales contained a particularly obscene account of a Japanese Tea Ceremony.

"Just the one sugar then, Mr. Tumbleweed sir," he answered quietly as a creak rippled through the little boat. "Rocks are shifting."


	4. Chapter 4

**Take My Day**

Vernon hated his father. The doctors told him that his father had cultural shock issues, post-traumatic alcoholism, late-onset Asperger's, depression and bipolar dynamism. Vernon knew him as a sullen, old drunk with a bad temper. The doctors disagreed, but they didn't have to live with his father.

The old-timers had insisted that they would sit in the ice-houses and watch the first rays of the sun as it made its first, brief ascent into the early Spring sky. This was the mark of the new year for them, as revealed by the turn of the Earth itself.

"I don't see why you have to get all layered up and sit there for three days in the dark," he quarreled with his father. "We could bus you up on the snow-mobiles the evening before. I'd come with you. It would be an honor. We could eat and drink a little, then come home to the warmth."

In a lucid moment his father would slur. "Only the eldest of each family should watch. There would be no reason to go if we made it a family excursion, a 'day out' for the children."

Vernon filled the coffee pot with water and set it on the electric plate to heat up.

"I have to get back to the realtors office," he grumbled. "Those kids don't know how to work the copier. The place will catch fire if I stay away too long."

His father shrugged and rocked his head in an ambiguous way. "I can make my own coffee. You go off now, and sell your family lands."

"The plots in the township were never sacred to us. Just some rocks where the seals passed though." Vernon sighed over the oft-repeated argument. It was his job to sell property and he did it very well, had a way with all sorts of folks. And, despite his father's harsh words, in the back of Vernon's mind he kept the notion of historic lands; found maps and paid for research. His own sense of a moral exploitation was strong.

"Call me if you have any problems with the machinery," he mumbled. He reached for his padded jacket, suddenly eager to get back to some proper work. "There are crackers in the jar. I'll clean up this evening before I make your dinner."

"Machinery," his father spat. "A little thing to heat the water. But all the same. Those machines are everywhere. What do we need from them? What good do they do for us?"

Vernon chuckled bitterly as he pulled the hood up over his head. "My old father. You can light a fire with some sticks and heat your coffee the traditional way if you wish. But wait until someone is back home here with you. I can't sell this house if you burn it down."

His father was furiously mumbling at his sarcasm when he left the building and went out into the snow. Vernon walked past the snow-house in the back lot, little more than a childish igloo, where his father had attempted to stay out the previous evening. It had ended badly with much shouting and arguing. His father was close to freezing to death, despite the sheltered nature of the igloo's interior and the electrical heating. Vernon half-suspected that his father had accepted he might die. But that was not part of Vernon's personal culture and, if he bothered to think about it, would not have been part of the traditional Inuit thinking either.

Vernon climbed up to the driver's seat of the pickup and started the engine. He wanted it to warm up quickly. While the condensed water ran down the inside of the windshield, he pulled out his cell-phone and called his wife.

"Hi Beth. I'm heading in to the office in time for lunch. I need to check up on those morons from the agency; make sure they don't actually do anything apart from filing."

"Just keep your temper, Vern," she reassured him. "You can't spend all day typing and filing. We need those 'morons' to keep all the crap from building up. Then you can stick to what you do best."

"Can you do me a favor, my dear?" he asked.

There was a pause and a little sigh. "Have you left him to play with matches again?" she replied. Beth was no fool.

"I'm sorry, my dear." He rubbed his face. "He seems alright at the moment. Could you just look in, in about an hour? You don't have to say anything to him. Just pretend you're picking up laundry or something."

"Alright. But just remember. If that building's on fire, I'm not going in to get him." Beth's voice was flat and serious.

"Oh, okay, Beth. That's good to know. At least give me a call if the house is on fire." Vern felt that he himself was already starting to smolder inside.

"Sure. I can spare one call for the old yeti. You or the fire-house. I can call either. You choose…"

"Thanks Beth. Just make sure he doesn't switch on anything."

Beth laughed. "If he's hitting the sandwich maker again with a rabbit foot, I'll just turn straight around and come home. I'm not his house-maid."

Vern sighed at the tired old story. "It was a bone from a snow-hare and he was only trying to look inside. He thought there something inside the hot-plates."

"Yes, I know, Vern. Like an evil spirit? Or energy from space?"

"Thanks Beth. Love ya." Vern hung up before Beth could do the same. No doubt she would head out for cigarettes later in the morning and look in on the house, whether or not it was lunch-time. For all her surliness, she knew the vague importance of his father to him. It just didn't have to be a major part of her life or her day.

When Beth turned up just after her lunch, the house was silent and dark. It was no surprise, though, that the old man distrusted the electric light. But after a few minutes looking around the cluttered rooms, Beth made her single phone call.

"Vern. Your father's disappeared."


	5. Chapter 5

**Some Test**

A couple of days after the New Year, Mulder and Scully met at an 'Olde Worlde' styled inn overlooking the Capitol Hill park in Albany, New York. The restaurant was well known for its Italian cooking and its great views at sunset.

"Hopefully, we'll get a decent pizza there," Mulder had said over the phone.

They met in the parking lot as Mulder parked the rental car and got seated without much fuss. It was a busy evening, despite being midweek, and the sounds of a family party boomed thru from the hotel function suites.

"Why are you heading to Canada, of all places?" Mulder quizzed. He scoured the typed menu for hidden meaning and unknown ingredients.

"I had this strange meeting with a doctor from FEMA," said Scully. "I think he was in my medical school when I first studied to be a doctor, but I would never have remembered his name. He wants me to take his place on some investigation involving animal autopsies."

Mulder was pondering the origins of the myco-protein in the vegan burgers, and seemed more interested in that than the intrigues of his current colleague.

"Yeah?" he said, looking up briefly from the menu. "So why are you in Albany right now? Are you going to Canada by train?" he mused. "They have planes there, you know."

"Well, no." Dana said "There are nearly ten thousand Federal buildings in the mainland States. But the one I was at this morning is the only one that holds any information on the man I'm interested in."

"We do have computers and electronic mail nowadays," he suggested helpfully.

"You may say that," she shrugged, "but this friend, the doctor I was talking about, his details were letter-press typed onto index cards with stencil notes written in ink. No hand-writing allowed. And the cards were in an unmarked box. And that box was amongst a dozen others in the wrong office building, on the wrong side of the street. I'm lucky I had the right town."

"That doesn't sound unusual for the F.B.-one cares where the information is, as long as it's hidden. At least you found the reports you were looking for." He seemed irritated, keen to turn the conversation to his own tale. "I spent two weeks in Denver compiling a report on international U.F.O. sightings. Proper government figures. Not your usual crackpot reports. Usually, I would expect that kind of thing to be kicked around and patronized for weeks and months before it quietly disappears. It used to happen all the time. Now, I find there's no report. It literally leaves my hand and disappears into nothingness."

With their respective frustrations still hanging in the air, they went straight to ordering main meals. They decided to try to chat idly about banal items from the national news, but Mulder became increasingly more irritated by the sound from the wedding celebration.

"Excuse me," he said to the waitress. "Can you do something about that noise? I'm trying to talk to my colleague here about business. It's very distracting."

"I'm sorry, sir," she replied. "We have all the central doors open. The air-conditioning is broken in some parts of the hotel."

She went off to deal with something more food-related. Mulder seemed unconvinced. He wiped his mouth and stood up.

"I'm just going to wash my hands. Maybe I can find out if that wedding's going to last all evening."

"Are you joking, Mulder?" Dana frowned slightly. "It's a wedding after all. Let them enjoy themselves before they settle down to the horrors of real life."

"I'll just be a minute. You know I could have been a diplomat. It was a close choice between that and, well, chasing flying saucers."

"I can see that," Dana laughed, hoping to scorn Mulder back into his seat. "At least leave your gun here with me. We don't want any gunboat diplomacy in a crowded restaurant."

"Oh, that's funny," he nodded. "I'll be fine. Everyone'll be fine. I really need to wash my hands, though. Really, I'll just be two minutes."

He disappeared without further comment. After a few minutes the two main courses arrived looking spectacular and filling. Dana waited a few minutes more, but decided that it would be a waste of taxpayer expenses to let the meal go cold. She finished her fish with pleasure and ordered coffee. "My friend'll be back in a minute," she hoped.

After a few minutes, the sound of the band started again. Dana sipped another cup of coffee. The ancient strains of The Walker Brothers boomed thru from the function suite. Dana was not really sure if it was a sound system playing an old record or a poor session-band knocking out a half-reasonable standard.

At the second chorus of "The Sun ain't gonna shine – anymore", she concluded that it was a combination of over-stretched, but enthusiastic warbling and a backing track. Dreadful, even at this distance; probably painful in the wedding party itself.

"Why do these people think they have even the smallest amount of talent?" she tutted. The cheering of the crowd increased briefly then shrank back to a dull murmur.

When Mulder returned, Dana had already settled the check and was considering leaving. "I thought you might actually have left," she told him, eyebrows raised.

"No. No, I had a bit of a word with the wedding guests. They seem a good bunch after all." He added with a shrug. He prodded the cooled pizza slices without enthusiasm.

"Mulder?" Dana was a little bemused. "Did you crash a wedding party?"

He shook his head. "A few drinks. A few songs. No big deal." He looked off vaguely into the distance, then caught the attention of the waitress. "Can I get a box for these, please?"

"Mulder. Was that you singing? Were you singing _karaoke_?" Dana was unsure whether she was horrified or impressed by this undercover activity.

"I refuse to answer on the grounds it may tend to incriminate me," he smiled with some finality.


	6. Chapter 6

**Agreed Sunday**

Pérez liked his sea-food, which was great for someone who worked in the Caribbean so much. But, on this trip, he had now, after so many un-afflicted years, found something to happy to disagree with him. He was laid up in his hotel room looking down on the pool. The pain in his stomach was excruciating and he had to wretch frequently. Usually, even with quite severe symptoms, he would never take sick leave. But today there was no chance at all of 'grinning and bearing it'. He sat by the telephone, in a slight delirium, thinking of people he could call and ordering mushroom soup to settle his innards.

What was particularly difficult was that most of the operation he had put together would carry-on in the dark. Metaphorically and in reality. Small players were each briefed in small tasks, all pleased to take the Yankee dollar. Theoretically, no one person could add up even a quarter of the puzzle with three-fourths of the pieces.

The phone rang. "Hello?" He never liked to give a name when he picked up the receiver.

"Pérez?" It was his line manager, Fowler, from the export warehouse. "Sorry to hear you're not so well." At least this was someone he could actually talk to.

He explained his predicament without complaint. "It must have been the salad. Normally I can eat anything that has a shell or a tentacle, as near to raw as it comes from the water. Someone must have stuck a lettuce leaf in the dressing to mess with me."

"Yes. That sounds like a real problem." Fowler was not picking up on the humor. "I'm a bit concerned. How is the Front Story affected by this?" Pérez's more imaginative colleagues liked to call their operations 'stories'. Most operatives had a main or 'front' story to work on. If they had time (or talent) they could develop a secondary or 'background' story for future resourcing.

"Don't worry. All the elements are already wound up and ticking over. There's nothing more for me to do."

"That's good. When do we get our materials in Galveston?"

"Two weeks. Should be Friday next."

"Good, good. I'll write that up at the next meeting as ongoing. One other little matter then…"

"What's that?" Pérez felt a little wave of chill pass over his already cold forehead.

"Are you developing a 'back' story at the moment?"

Pérez thought quickly about his options, but could only go for the truth. He was too ill to be clever. And there was no point in developing an operation secretively and then expecting a big check-book to be opened for it at a later date.

"Uh, yes. A small thing up north. It doesn't really figure as a Back Story yet. A few observations. Some contacts to work-up. Probably just the one big paragraph if you really needed a description. Shall I write up something for you, for the meeting?"

"Who's helping you on this, Pérez? We're not totally sure you're keeping inside our usual guidelines with this one."

"Um, I looked up an old colleague from med school. She's got good credentials – federal type credentials - but no connection to any of our businesses. I thought it would be good to work the usual routine. Let her find us a few facts and then maybe she would fall in to further exploration without much direction from me."

The voice at the end paused and appeared to ponder. There was a sigh.

"Is this a Dr. Scully that you're talking about?" Pérez left his own heavy pause.

"Yes. That's right." Now he didn't know what was happening. "Is this a problem? I did some checking. She's on back-room duties, cold case admin, and the odd autopsy. An ideal choice; bored; easy to tempt with something more interesting…"

"I think we may have an issue with jurisdiction." The voice got quieter.

"When did we ever care about what the Feds thought about anything?" he blurted out with some annoyance.

There was a pause which became a silence. Despite the muted phone at the other end, Pérez thought he could hear some tiny squawks which indicated a muffled conversation.

"Are all your files up to date and complete, Pérez?"

"Yes, of course. I can answer any questions you might have…"

"And are your own papers in the hotel safe or the room safe?"

Pérez always heard himself say untrue words slowly. "The. Room. Safe."

"Please hold the line," said Fowler. The line went silent.

Alarmed, Pérez rolled onto the floor and grabbed his pants, pulling them up and dropping his bare feet into the shoes in one motion.

"Fowler? I can get on a plane home if you really need me to." The phone remained silent. He wasn't sure now if the line was dead.

There was a knock at the door.

Pérez felt a heavy pain thud thru his belly. He knew, it would be difficult to run or struggle with a determined intruder. Ironically, his gun was the only thing which was in the room-safe, cozy at the back of the closet behind his suits.

"Hello?" He fake-groaned like an office junior with a hangover.

"Room Service," came the cheerful Creole accent. Probably a woman.

"I'm sure," he mumbled to himself. "Leave it outside," he fake-groaned.

The door opened with clicks and fumbles. Pérez stumbled to the blinds and supported himself on the wall. A no-nonsense lady in hotel attire had walked in. The food trolley stood in the hall.

"They said you're sick. Soup?" She seemed unaware of her intrusiveness or generally rude manner.

"Put it on the table," he mumbled, unsure what role he was now playing. He stood still and fumbled in his pocket. There was a loose greenback in his hand which he waved at the woman.

"Off you go. Bring more later." She took the stretched out note and left without looking at it. The door slammed heavily.

Pérez stared at the soup and steadied his breathing. The phone still hung off the hook, the receiver buried in the carpet. He slowly moved back to the chair and picked up the phone. Fowler had hung up, or been disconnected.

What was his next move? Who to call next?

"Dana?"

"Carlos?"

"Where are you?" he asked carefully. He turned the soup over with the spoon, carefully inspecting its beige consistency.

"I'm on my way to Lake Peary. Just as we discussed. Is everything alright?" She seemed wary.

He thought carefully, looking at his warped reflection in the spoon.

"Yes," he said. "Everything. Is. Alright."


	7. Chapter 7

**Like Spiders**

Lying on its side it was. Stokes preferred to approach the French ship from above where she could see its full profile. The magnificent Napoleonic galleon lay firmly on the floor of the lake. Dead in the water, but still stately and intact. Even a couple of the masts were intact, stripped of any sail fabric by hidden tides and the innocent activity of swimming fish.

"The ship's a distraction." Their Texan team leader had tried to keep all the undersea activity under control. "We test the kit. Make it perform as best we can."

The main point of the science mission was to test out the little flat sub that Vauxhall had acquired thru his myriad connections. But the nominal reason – the reason given in tame press releases - was to investigate the old wreck; a wooden vessel that had eluded the British and defeated the ice, only to meet its fate at the hands of its own crew.

"There's no need to swim around there on your own, Miss Stokes," Weed had warned. "The saucer'll be fixed in a week, ten days. You could use the kiddie-car if you want until then."

Stokes had ignored him, and his fake politeness, pulled on the mask and rebreather and let herself fall back into the water of the lake. Vauxhall, recovering after crashing the saucer into the rocks, had stocked out the equipment chests with short and stubby swim-fins – no doubt of nefarious military provenance - but Stokes had brought her own fins, long and elegant, allowing her to move in the water with subtlety and instinct.

"Now stay away from the French wreck," he had instructed when she first mooted a solo drive. "The currents are stronger than you might think." Stokes did not need to be told how and where to dive, but she nodded that she had heard what he said.

The wreck lay in a relatively flat ledge of rock and sand at thirty feet. What particularly fascinated her, what everyone else missed, were the empty walls of the vessel. She knew from actually researching the ship that painted and carved wood panels should have hung on the bowsprit as a mark of authority. Now it was blank and empty; a flagship vessel with no character.

The other divers, the men, all noticed the portholes for the rows of cannon, still opening up from the tilted wall, some of the pieces appearing still ready to fire even in the water. "Ready to fight," Weed had described it, like he felt pirate blood in his veins. "Always ready to spring on their prey."

Significantly, however, this particular predator had fled a battle with the British and made a ludicrous detour to this secluded lake and, ultimately, the bottom of the water. But such academic conclusions were largely ignored, based not on her own researches, but overheard in muffled conversations at very stuffy dinner tables.

"If you don't like my jokes, just ignore them." Weed was very competent at what he did. His experience ranged from frozen wastes to sweaty overheating forests. But he was a 'people' person in only one way. If you liked him instantly, he liked you instantly. Everyone else was written off. Stokes wondered if he considered it 'compromise' to understand other people.

As she descended to the shoulder of bedrock that the wreck lay on, the current swirled around her and started to channel into strong lines that forced her in a downward direction. The best tactic was to swim with the water and cut across the stream in the general direction she wanted. She let herself head down to the wreck with added speed and drift firmly toward the tilted deck. From a previous visit she knew that the current at that tilted face was virtually zero and the handholds to hold her in place were good.

"I saw a local get sucked into a whirlpool in Oahu. He had the tanks, weights, everything. We got him back with a bell a couple of days later. But it was way too late. The fish had got him too." Weed relished the telling of this tale, leering at the grisly idea of a marine demise. Stokes did not deny that the story might be true, or even that it might have some dramatic appeal. But Weed's careful nursing of the tale's details unsettled her.

Stokes firmly gripped the uneven wooden surface and pulled herself along the deck of the ship searching for a calm spot to rest in. Towards the stern, in a striking pillar of light from the surface, she paused near the remains of the rudder. Tiny waves of fish were sweeping along the contours of the boat like little birds on warm sand. For a few seconds, it was a beautiful place to be. But beauty was often fleeting and in this particular place it was dangerous to linger.

"Ghosts!" Weed had attempted to unsettle her on their first meeting by shouting out across the boat-shed as she stepped off the little rigid inflatable. "Let's go ghost hunting. Under the sea!" Her immediate assessment of his amateur presentation did not change over the subsequent months.

Now, here, under the sea, she felt that perhaps his foolish promise was a little easier to believe. With her hand on a two-hundred-year-old vessel, the distance from here to there was virtually non-existent. She crept further along the hull and slunk around to the deck. After a few minutes she found a steady spot and took some photographs. The view down the length of the ship, from stem to stern, was particularly dramatic in the low light.

"And watch out for the monster," he had warned. Stokes smiled within her mask. Pretty much anything with an attitude was a 'monster' at this depth. That was part of the thrill. Something tiny might be easy to fend off; something massive might miss her entirely. What lay between might prove tricky.

So as she watched a pair of electric lamp-lights descend toward her she wondered how this particular unknown might take to her.


	8. Chapter 8

**One Way Or Another**

Vernon hated his father. But this was something different. Despite constantly supervising the old man's most basic activities on a seemingly minute-to-minute basis, the ageing hunter had vanished into the snow. Vernon sat behind the wheel of the pick-up, parked at the junction, facing straight up the valley along the length of the freezing lake. Although it was late afternoon, the latitude meant it was dark as night. The moon only emphasized how little street lighting there was.

His cell-phone rang. "Hey. Who's that?" he snapped.

"Hey Vern. No news?" It was Beth.

"No. I thought you might have heard something." He looked at the junction in front of him. "I was going to drive back up to where you are at the house. See if he's stumbling down the road here in to town."

Beth sighed. She was struggling to maintain her interest in her husband's problem. "We have no idea how long he's been gone. For all I know he might have run out straight after you left for the office at lunchtime. That could be hours."

"I asked you to look in on him just after lunch," he replied carelessly. "You might have seen if you hadn't taken so long."

"Hey, Vern." She stopped his rant dead. "I said I wasn't coming. You asked again and I said I'd look in. Don't pin this on me. If he's walked out of his own house into a snow-drift it's his own decision."

"Sorry," he said. "He could be anywhere. Did you check around? What about the ice house?"

"It's the first place I looked," she sighed. "Hey, an old Eskimo gets a chill? The first place he goes is the igloo."

"Thanks for checking at least. Did you see any tracks? I don't think he would have been careful about hiding where he went."

"Seriously? What bit of 'frozen waste' don't you get yet? If you want sniffer dogs and magnifying glasses, you can call one of your detective buddies up from Labrador City to do all that leg work for you." There was a faint sound of breathe being drawn in. Beth was smoking in his father's house, not something he would normally leave unmentioned.

"That's not such a bad idea, Beth." He looked left up the track, back to the tiny township and his father's house. It was possible the old man had stumbled down this way and back into the town, possibly looking for the nearest bar, or his drinking buddies, or both. If he had left early enough, Vernon would have not have seen him. It was also possible his disoriented father, half-senile, had taken the other turn in the half-light relying on a sadly redundant instinct, and stumbled off along the hunters track. There was literally nothing along the track, no lodges or shelters, and even the pot-holes ran out after a few miles because no-one wanted to drive that way.

"Okay Vern. Much as I like to hear you staring into space, I'm going to go now. Good luck with your father. Let me know how you get on." Beth hung up without further discussion. Vernon hated it when she did that. He had wanted her to stay at the house, make a few calls. Now he would probably have to do that himself. He looked up the bleak track and decided that there would be little chance of finding any person… alive.

Having decided, he drove swiftly up the township road half-expecting to see the old man stumbling down the road toward him, but the bumpy track was clear and crisp and the only movement came from the circling birds and the shelves of snow falling randomly from spring-loaded branches. About fifteen minutes from the house, Vern spotted Beth coming the other way, clouds of snow churning up around her wheels. She was clearly in a hurry and did not stop as the two vehicles passed.

A little annoyed that his own wife had blanked him on the road, Vern continued up to the township and pulled up in front of his father's house. A few lights were still on in the building, but they did not suggest that anyone was at home. He parked carelessly in the lot and entered the single storey building, not in any particular hurry.

"Father!" He shouted randomly, sure that there would be little response. Even if the old fool had been there, he might not have replied. Vernon did a quick sweep of the house, reassuring himself of Beth's assessment. The old man was gone, but with nothing obvious to assist him out in the cold, no food or drink. He checked the boot closet and recalled that a very old but thick fur had hung there. His father had probably taken it for its ritual significance rather than its warmth, but that at least was fortunate.

The lights in the kitchen were still on and Vernon noted the two coffee mugs on the counter by the sink, possibly one used by his father, the other by his wife, each drinking hours apart. In the sink was the ash from Beth's cigarette that she had barely attempted to wash away. He went to the telephone and called the bar that his father frequented with his sometime cronies.

"Traders!" chirped a manly voice. Although he longer drank himself, Vernon still recognized the barkeep's voice.

"Solly? Hey there. It's Vern from across the way."

"Hey Vern. How are you doing these days? Come on over for a drink. We miss you."

"Thanks Solly. I'm not sure how to take that."

"Just messing with you, Vern. We can still meet. That little place at the airstrip serves awful coffee though."

"Always with the funny, Solly. Sure. Let's get an espresso some time. I just need to know if my father has been in today. Maybe he met some of those other drunks? He was talking about going up for the sunrise in a couple of days."

"No. No sign of him for weeks, Vern. I can see Atka in the corner with a couple of the others. Shall I ask them if they're planning anything?"

"Maybe later. For now I need some help to find the old man. He seems to have wandered off. Maybe into the snow by himself. It could be serious. Keep an eye out for any of the trappers who might be hanging out."

"Sure Vern. And you might be in luck too. I heard a couple of detectives flew in to town this morning."

Vernon was unsure if this was a piece of luck or something a little more sinister. The timing was completely unrelated to what had happened. He rinsed out one of the mugs and finished the coffee from the pot. It was surprisingly good and made his head feel a little clearer. Stepping out into the back lot he looked over to the snow-house he had helped his father build a couple of nights previously. It was longer and lower than the kind of igloo that a child might have drawn, more like a small grey submarine. He had managed to smooth out the lines with little streams of boiling water that had frozen quickly to a glassy shell.

He made a quick circle of the snow-house and noted again the overlapping footsteps in the foot-deep snow-pack. The activities of the disastrous overnight expedition were mashed together, his own steps hurrying back and forth, the feeble stumbling of his father near hypothermia, the firm impression of the part-time medic arriving and helping to take the old man into the house. Vernon stood over at the end furthest from the house, the end where the small tunnel allowed entry to the snug shelter. He could make out where Beth had stood with her small boots looking carefully into the gloom, half-expecting to see a body, maybe even half-hoping to see one. There was even a tiny flicker of ash off to the side to confirm her brief moment of conscience.

But Vernon turned back to the biggest crossing over of footsteps where all the commotion had taken place. All the snow was broken down and pitted, muddy and icy. But just beyond it, perhaps six or seven feet away from the house, heading away from the house, was a dull shadow on the surface of the ice pack. He stepped up onto the shoulder of snow, looking up the valley up the length of the lake, his feet sinking into the crumbly edge. There was another little shadow a little further away on the snow. He stepped forward again into the snow pack and his foot sank down again. Leaning forward he dusted the first shadowy patch with his cold fingertips. It was rough with a regular criss-cross pattern.

Footprints. Feet wearing hand-made snow-shoes. Vernon felt such an idiot. He had let his own vehicle driving habits cloud the obvious other options. His father had walked straight out the back of the house into the garden, past the snow-house and hopped carelessly onto the snow-pack to head up towards the lake. He still did not know how long ago this had happened, but now he had a trail to follow.


	9. Chapter 9

**Agree To Differ**

Canada was cold. Mulder and Scully were in Canada. Therefore Mulder and Scully were cold.

"When you said you were coming to Canada, I thought we might be hanging out in some French speaking café or an old-fashioned Scottish bar." Mulder was not impressed.

Scully seemed a little distracted, looking over a folder of printed-out documents. "What are you saying? I told you we were coming to a distant lake. In fact, I told you I was coming to a distant lake on my own, and you thought you would tag along."

"I always like a good mystery." Mulder pulled the furry hat further down over his ears and tried to dab his wet nose again. "I just thought there might be a bit more character to set the scene."

Scully crammed all but one of the papers back into the folder and dumped it onto their small pile of luggage. "It's not a mystery, Mulder. A few wild animals with bite marks. I could have this wrapped up this evening."

Mulder looked out past the control building, a portable cabin with a heavy paint job, to the lake beyond. "A cold dark lake, hours from civilization, with no Sun in the sky at noon. It's a mystery why anyone would want to live here. What sort of job could you have? Apart from one that required you to wear a checked shirt."

Scully tried to dial a number from her cell-phone. "No reception," she said. "Maybe we could make a call from the airport building?"

"I think they close at sunset, which is probably October around here." Mulder screwed up his eyes, but the cabin was empty, closed up tight. Beside it was a large fuel tank, presumably containing kerosene for passing aircraft. But their chopper, a local police helicopter from Labrador City, had barely touched down before abandoning them, let alone sought extra fuel. "Gotta go," said the handsome young man with his total-black sunshades. "Weather is coming in. Enjoy your stay. Wherever this is." He had made a mock salute and let the chopper drift back into the sky then arc away back south.

Scully turned to face the other way across the meager air-strip. "Those lights must be the town. We can head over there."

"How far do you think that is?" Mulder was a little skeptical. "They don't exactly have left-luggage here."

Scully looked back over her shoulder briefly before heading off. "It's four bags, Mulder. Why don't you just carry them? Then we don't have to leave them to freeze or be eaten by wolves."

Mulder took a second to consider his situation. The four pieces of luggage would be no physical problem to his masculine form, but he was not so clear on why he had to carry all the items concerned. But Scully had moved on and he was keen to debunk this mystery at the earliest opportunity.

"Would wolves eat luggage?" He shouted after Scully, hoping to check her movement while he shouldered the two biggest items. "Scully?" He turned to head out of the airfield, but a small shape by the fuel tank caught his eye.

By the time Scully reached the first building her eyes had adjusted significantly to the low light and she realized that there were several buildings in the town, but they were all badly lit or in complete darkness. A thin strip of gloom outlined the length of the office-type cabin and there was a bare crack of light around the doorway. Two small wooden steps led up to the door, a sign above it reading "Lake Peary Realtors". Scully was about to knock when a commotion of clattering and shouting behind her made her turn.

"Hey, Scully. Bears. Bears would eat your luggage. Bears, not wolves. We need to look out for bears." Mulder was jogging down to the realtors office pulling a small cart behind him. Their bags were balanced efficiently on the long bed of the cart.

"What is that?" Scully was surprised by the bizarre vehicle.

"It's a porters trolley. You've been to a rail-road station, right? They put the luggage on and carry it to the train for you." Mulder seemed a little pleased with himself in a way which did Scully did not believe suited him. "I found it by the fuel tank at the air-strip."

"What's it doing here? And – Mulder – is that engine oil on the bed? Take my bags off. I'll carry them from here." Scully frowned. She knew she should really have carried her own luggage.

"Do you think they have a phone in there? A 'realtors'. Who would buy land up here?" Mulder took Scully's bags from the trolley and set them on the first step. Scully knocked the screen door politely then pushed open the door.

"Hey. How are you doing?" A young man in a cheap suit stood up from behind a document laden desk, wearing his best 'closing' smile, not disturbed by these unforeseen visitors.

Mulder felt he could have been in Maine or Florida. Apart from the woolen gloves that the young man wore, the office had the cramped feel of a busy realtors with plot maps and glossy photos on the wall, and box-files and bundles of papers on the desks and on the shelves. It was almost like home.

"Can we use your phone, please?" Scully set to business. The young salesman looked surprised, but kept up the smile.

"Not a problem. Passing thru?" He turned the desk-phone precisely around to face Scully and offered her the receiver. "Just dial '9' first."

"Thank you." Dana put the paper on the desk in a slow, steady manner, indicating her need for privacy.

"Why don't you show me what you've got for sale around here?" Mulder slipped smoothly into his role of fixer, clapping the salesman on the shoulder while simultaneously directing him to the back of the cabin. "I already know this place is just right for a little hideout I have in mind. Somewhere away from the big city where I can meditate."

Dana dialed the number on the print-out. The number rang out after a minute. She tried the second number, but this too was not answered. Sighing, she took out her cell-phone and looked up the number for Pérez then dialed it from the desk-phone. There was a long pause while the call connected to whatever satellite it needed and found whichever cell was necessary. The phone rang twice.

The phone clicked positively as the call was answered. Dana cleared her throat to speak, then paused. The call at the other end had definitely connected, but there was no immediate answer. No-one spoke. She listened carefully. Still no-one spoke. Suspicious, she decided not to talk and reached her free hand forward to disconnect the call.

"You want coffee, Scully?" Mulder stood beside her with a helpful cup of steaming brew. He stopped as he saw her look of horror. She turned back to the receiver, but the call had been disconnected.

"Bad moment?" Mulder looked sheepish. He put the coffee cup on the desk.

Scully thought carefully, but there was no way of knowing if her name had been mentioned before or after the call ended. "Yes. But who for?"


	10. Chapter 10

**Feet On The Table**

Mulder walked into the bar and sat at the counter. Despite the fact it was obviously an old railroad car, it had a feeling of space. There were a couple of dozen customers, mainly men, chatting at tables and conspiring in booths. Behind the counter, a young man with red hair and a checked shirt was arranging a limited selection of whisky bottles on a shelf. "Be with you in a second, buddy," he said over his shoulder.

Mulder wondered who was most in danger at this moment; Scully at the local morgue or he himself with this motley selection of traders and lumberjacks.

"Hey, welcome to Traders. You new here? What can I get you?" The barkeep seemed friendly and intelligent.

"Yeah. Passing thru really. Just looking to catch some of the local wild-life." Mulder wondered how much he needed to discuss their ludicrous mission.

"What are you trying to catch? Most of the wildlife is hibernating at the moment. Shooting a few snow-hares maybe? Makes a nice stew, I'm told."

"Um, no. Not catching in the hunting sense. We're just watching out. Wildlife in general."

"Sure. Most of the tourists we get here are bird enthusiasts. Why else would you come here? A lot of species heading off to Europe or the odd thing heading down to the States." The barkeep whipped his glass cloth onto the counter. "You want the wine list? Or will a bottle of beer do you?"

Mulder smiled. "That's fine. I assume don't get a lot of call for cocktails round here."

The barkeep laughed briefly. "You assume right. You can mix your drink with Scotch or rye if you really have to."

"Solly!" A group of old men were huddled in the corner smoking furiously. It was not clear where the voice had come from, but taking his cue the barkeep nodded to Mulder before turning to the shelf of bottles. He selected a particularly potent looking spirit and walked it down to the clouded table. There was a brief exchange of conversation before he returned.

"Local characters?" Mulder was intrigued by the mixture of traditional and modern clothing.

"Yeah. Eskimo chiefs or whatever they have. Don't like to be called 'Indians' anyway." Solly kept talking but cleared some of the glasses from the tables near Mulder.

"I don't even think Native Americans like that any more." Mulder sipped his beer, planning to keep a clear head.

"Oh yeah. No offence. Gotta keep up with the times. You're not looking for the monster are you?" Solly carried the glassware in the fingers of both hands to the grubby little sink behind the counter.

Mulder looked up carefully. "Oh. Did you say 'monster'?"

"We get bird enthusiasts, photographers, film-makers. They visit once or twice a year. They say they're looking for one thing, but they're all looking for the monster. We all want to touch a piece of a legend."

Mulder laughed quietly. "Yes. We're looking for a monster. Going to take some snaps to show the folks back home." It seemed genuinely funny to him.

"The old guy with the movie reel still lives here. He used to visit now and again. But I think now he's retired or somethin'. Stays here pretty much all the year. Doesn't drink though, so I don't see him around."

"I'm not sure who you're talking about. To be honest I'm only here to assist my colleague. She's a doctor and she's going to look at some animal remains. A bit of a favor for another friend."

"Sounds strange." Solly started to think aloud. "I heard some sled-dogs went missing. We all figured it was wolves."

"Okay. That's probably what it is. She has this thing about medical injuries. I think she must be writing a paper or something. Hauling me up here to watch her back."

"Don't worry. The only thing dangerous up here is the weather. Are you a body-guard then?"

Mulder smiled. That wasn't such a bad way to look at things, although Scully would never have asked for his protection. "I'll be honest with you, Solly. I'm a police officer during daylight hours. But that means I'm pretty much off-duty for the next few weeks."

Mulder had his badge to hand so he showed it briefly to Solly. The barkeep looked a little amused, a little surprised.

"You're a Fed?" he asked.

"Don't worry. I'm not interested in your tax affairs; I'm sure they're all in good order. I'm just here to look after my friend."

"You carrying? You got a piece on you?" Solly seemed childishly interested in his newest visitor. He stood two bottles of beer on the counter and popped the tops single-handedly.

"Oh. We had to check our side-arms at Albany. Something about guns on planes." Mulder took a swig from his second beer. That would have to be his last of the evening.

Solly nodded. "That's a shame. We're quite responsible here. About five guns apiece in some parts of the country. You know…" Solly leaned forward conspiratorially. "If you need some heat, I can see what I can do."

Mulder did not know what to think. "Maybe a harpoon? If we're chasing a sea monster?"

Solly laughed, understanding. "I get it. Sure. But if you have any enforcement duties that might arise?"

"Oh, I know where to come." Mulder smiled.

"I keep a hunting rifle over there by the bottles." Mulder noted a long low box locked under the shelving. Certainly not ready for instant use.

"No baseball bat? That's an American staple." Mulder wondered how safe the bar staff could feel out here so far from the usual authorities.

"There's a billy club beside the sink," said Solly. "That's all I need to keep the locals in line. They very rarely get above the level of shouting."

Mulder reached for the third bottle. "Well, thank you, Solly. I'm happy to say this is the safest I've felt in a very long time."

The door crashed open behind him. Solly's eyes opened in surprise. "Ah," he said. "Trouble."


	11. Chapter 11

**Ice, No Sugar**

Scully had never seen a morgue like it before. "Is this hygienic?" She was not impressed.

Her guide, a little woman from the fish mart next door, looked impatient. "With the amount of soap and detergent in here, I would say so, yes."

Scully looked up at the roof of the barrack style building. She could see the inky darkness of the night sky through patchy rips in the corrugated iron. "Does it rain a lot?"

"Not much. But the good thing about working next door is that I can come thru and keep an eye on things. Don't get much call for a laundromat at this time of year anyway. No tourists. I just keep it locked until someone comes knocking for the key. Like yourself, my dear. Let me switch the lights on."

"Well thank you for letting me in, Mrs. Chang." Scully shivered within the heavy padding of her winter jacket. She could hardly believe that such a public place would be used for the storage of animal remains, whatever condition they were in. The building was near to freezing inside so that helped maintain the carcass at least.

The end of the barrack where they stood by the door flashed into visibility. One wall was lined with washing machines, the opposite wall with large driers.

Mrs. Chang stayed by the door. She looked sad. "We should really have left the remains where they were. Nature would have taken better care of them. But our doctor friend called. He told me to gather them up somewhere safe."

"You know Carlos?" Scully had felt until now that this whole excursion was a little tenuous. Perhaps there was a lot more planning in the background, a lot more than she realized.

"Oh yes. Carlos cleans me out of shellfish whenever he appears. He's a bit of a one-man eating machine." Mrs. Chang looked very pleased with herself, and with the tastes of Carlos Pérez.

"How often do you see him up here?" Scully had taken the opportunity to do a little exploration for her own interests. She had thought of this being a journey into the unknown.

"It used to be quite a lot. Originally, I think it was just to recover. He has some high-powered job with those Federal Emergency people." Scully nodded. "He went hiking and a bit of foolish swimming in the lake. I think I even saw him with a paint-brush once. Since last Summer, he's just been calling a lot, asking for pictures of the lake, maps, getting me to arrange accommodation, meeting the helicopters. No problem. All very exciting. But all a lot of fuss over nothing."

"What were these other people like? Do you know what they're doing for him?" Scully looked briefly around the machines then moved towards the back of the barrack, her breathe clouding in front of her as it had done outside.

"I don't think many of them knew what they were doing. They seemed to stay overnight and go home." The woman flicked another row of switches. The back half of the barrack lit-up in front of Scully.

"I got that nice man from the bar to bring them in. He has a pick-up truck. Most of the men do round here. He parked round back where the loading doors are. Carried them in there." Mrs. Chang still stood by the light switches.

Scully braced her hand on the large drier beside her; stepped forward. The back half of the barrack was a series of long tables meant for pressing and stacking laundry items. Some rusty makeshift shelves still held enough folded towels for a small settlement. Today the long tables were serving a much less prosaic purpose.

"What have you got here?" Scully decided to launch straight into reviewing the situation. She had a little note book which she had bought for this trip; nothing official.

Mrs. Chang still stood by the door, hands by the rows of light switches. She sighed. "A couple of the working dogs. Lots of little- and medium-sized birds." She paused. "And an elk."

Scully pulled back the sheets from the first table which appeared to contain two dog-sized mounds.

She looked slowly at the mess before her. The two shapes were packed around with lots of big plastic bags of mechanically cubed ice. Small rivulets of water had refrozen toward the edge of the table.

Scully called back over her shoulder. "Did you use the ice from your market, Mrs. Chang?" Scully had recognized what the unpleasant smell was. She also figured that any bacteria from the dead fish might be swarming on the dead animals in front of her.

"Yes. I don't make large amounts of ice for my stalls. I had to re-use what I would have thrown away at the end of the day to pack around the carcasses. I topped up the piles with any spare chunks that we didn't need. Did I do wrong?"

"No. This is probably the best I could have expected. Thank you. You've done well for Carlos."

Mrs. Chang whispered. "Can I go now?"

Scully looked back reassuringly. "I'll only be a few minutes if you don't mind staying. I'll just review what there is and make up a plan. I can do a more detailed review on my own in the morning."

The second table contained a dozen birds of various types. She would need to take pictures and try to figure out what they were. Not that that would have any impact on the cause of their injuries. But anything out-of-place might provide a clue.

The last two tables were not quite what she was expecting. Pushed together in the darkest corner of the laundromat, presumably as little distance from the loading door as possible, they held a single stiff form about as a big as race-horse. Scully already knew what she was looking for and flipped back the sheet enough to see only the head. She resisted the urge to gasp.

"Mrs. Chang?"

"I know. It's horrible. Such a noble creature. All torn up."

Scully flipped the sheet back over the table, put away her note-book. "Yes. Terrible. But where are the antlers? It looks like this poor thing had antlers. They're not there now." Scully walked back to the door where Mrs. Chang stood, fixing her coat, ready to go.

Mrs. Chang covered her mouth. "I don't know. Maybe they couldn't get it on the pickup; or thru the door? I'm sorry. I just don't know."

As Mrs. Chang locked up the door of the Laundromat, Scully kept a further question to herself. "And where did all the skins go?" Scully thought.


	12. Chapter 12

**Nothing To See**

Cam loved to sleep on the beach. Sometimes he slept with a load of buddies, sometimes with one special friend. This morning he was alone. He had and his main crew had left Corpus Christi a few days earlier.

"The Corpitoz has lost its sparkle you by-standers. Let's scoot up the Gulf." Blazer was the youngest and the most easily bored. He liked to cajole the others verbally when he felt he was not getting enough attention, particularly when the surf was flat and he was not making the grade.

"Let's go up to Galveston." Chrissy was Cam's occasional friend and could usually sway most of the group when their attention began to drift. "The company is usually better there." He nodded and Blazer nodded and pretty soon they were all hitching up the coast.

After a couple of days, some of them had decided to divert off on a camera trip, taking laid-back pictures and getting back to nature. Cam had done all that sort of thing before and since he had been raised in Galveston he continued ahead alone.

On a whim, he passed by the family duplex, a cheaper area of town on the bayou facing over to Texas City. But his reception had not been friendly. "Hey look. The loser's back. What a surprise! With his board too. Now our life is perfect." After that short but heated conversation with this sometime family member he had decided that the old ways were the best. He found some fruit in a dumpster, still in good condition, then made his way to the other side of the island, to a part of the beach he remembered as being safe, sheltered and quiet.

After watching the Sun set he huddled up in some light blankets and slept lightly. In the morning, just as the Sun was rising, he scribbled a few lines of poetry in his Moleskine notebook.

_From day to night I love the beach  
The sand when warm, when dry, when white_

His musings were interrupted by the slow motoring of a boat. The scrappy little barge appeared clumsily around the headland, still a couple of miles away, rolling with the waves

"What a jerk." Cam muttered to himself, annoyed that his space had been interrupted by this small intruder. "You're out of the main lane!" he shouted. "You'll run aground!" The rusty vessel continued its slow progress thru the strait, almost silent now, clearly intending to sneak quietly behind the island and onto a quieter part of the shore.

The small barge was glowing in the sunrise, the whole of the top deck rippling with orange and yellow flickers like smooth flames.

From the west a shadow drifted along the beach. Cam looked up to see a small airship, like those that pulled advertising banners, slowly motoring overhead. It was a small craft and whatever powered it was quiet enough to be covered by the sound of the waves.

The little blimp soared lightly out over the water and slowed to a position over the barge. Whoever was on the little boat, their reaction was not visible. They might even have been taking holiday snaps. Cam could not tell from where he was and was not really awake enough to care. As he kept watching it was obvious that blimp was attempting to match the speed of the barge, turning gently to face back to shore and keep above the boat. The boat kept moving at the same speed as before, almost oblivious to the aerial follower. Then things turned nasty.

A thin rope snaked down from the airship, lashing around expertly until it dropped onto the deck of the barge. Still no-one appeared. No-one appeared to be interested as a seething flash of flame spilled down the line and onto the deck of the ship. Whatever was running down from the blimp onto the barge, it splashed furiously until the top half of the boat, the half above the surface of the water, was touched by liquid fire.

The quiet little blimp tacked round and round, over-steering then re-turning to tilt at the burning barge.

"No!" He shouted up at the blimp. "This is my beach!" He threw some feeble stones into the air. "You can't do that here!"

The blimp drifted silently on the line, turning a further circle. Once the barge was completely engulfed in silent flame, the line dropped down onto the water, and the blimp jumped softly up in the air.

"You can't do that!" He shouted again and started waving furiously in the air. "That is not cool!"

His jumping and waving stopped as the blimp drifted slightly sideways, then turned firmly to face him. He could not make out anyone in the cab; maybe there was no pilot at all and this was some horrible remotely-controlled machine. He shielded his eyes as the Sun moved up in the sky and the blimp moved forward to where he was standing like a fool.

"Now I'm the not-cool one." His anger drained quickly, his body chilling with the fear of the approaching danger. He turned to run, then thought about his board left propped by the rocks. He turned back on his already moving ankle and stumbled in the sand. "How can a surfer lose his balance on land?" He was chiding himself now. He looked at the board within reach, a few steps away. He looked at the approaching balloon, shadow on the front, sunglow at the back. He made a decision. "I'll come back for you." He whispered goodbye to his faithful board.

He turned and ran, the only sound from behind the crashing of the waves, not knowing how far he would have to run to escape the drifting threat. He dared not look back, feet pounding the cool sand, sometimes wet, sometimes dry, the surface changing with every step. But he did not even begin to escape. Within a minute the shadow of the blimp loomed over him and he started to stumble, then trip, then fall. He bumped his face on the sand and turned without skill to face up at his pursuer. He was exposed in a natural hollow of the dune.

"I didn't see nothing!" He shouted up. "I did not see anything!"

He lifted his hand up to cover his face. There was a light whistling noise and a flicking tumble of the plastic line as it flipped and flopped onto the sand beside him. Within a few seconds, it looked like the little hollow would become a boiling kettle of fire. Cam jumped at the line, briefly thinking that he could toss it far enough away to avoid being engulfed in flame.

He gripped the line firmly, helping himself to his feet and shouted up at the blimp above, its now-giant size blocking his view.

"Go to Hell!" He shouted, waving his fist, wrapped around in the deadly wire.

Cam heard nothing. He knew that the picture you saw traveled quicker than the sound you heard. The blimp exploded silently above him, ripping without flame into a hundred pieces. The pulse of air flung him back, punched his eyes, twisted his arms, bent his legs. Big pieces of debris battered his face and ripped at his belly.

"Wake up young man. We have to run." Cam heard the well-spoken but hasty English. He felt a hand grab his.

"I… I can't even walk," he gasped.

"Okay, okay. Just stumble quickly." The voice was still in a hurry, but it remained reassuring too. "Just don't look. Things'll be easier if you don't look."


	13. Chapter 13

**Boys Days**

Although it was supposed to be early morning, it was pitch black and there were only a few street lamps illuminating the center of the street. It might take a few days for Scully to get used to the constant darkness and she had to check her watch again to confirm it was a sociable hour to make a house-call. She wore a light parka given to her by a most-insistent Mrs. Chang from the guest-house and a head-scarf of some fashionable material.

Scully knocked. There was no answer for several minutes. She muttered under her breath, "How many callers do you get, Mr. Kovelski?" She could imagine Mulder smirking, "I told you to call ahead."

After a few further minutes of waiting, the door was opened. An ordinary elderly gentleman answered, his eyes blinking behind his giant prescription lenses. "Who's that?" he asked. "Do you know what time it is?"

Scully nodded. "It's difficult to work out what time it really is. I'm sorry. I thought you might have finished your breakfast."

"What do you want? Are you wanting breakfast? I told Mrs. Chang to stop sending me people. I'm too busy."

"I'm sorry," said Scully again. "I'm a Federal Agent from Washington DC. This is really a bit of a sabbatical for me. Just gathering some background on the area. A friend said you knew a lot of the history of the town, and of the lake."

"Ah," he sighed. He was a bit deflated. "Come in. History indeed."

"I like your walls," said Scully. The narrow hall led into a long living-space, a little kitchen at one end. Each wall had several large panels fixed onto it. They appeared to be made of wood, near-perfectly square and painted yellow.

"Acrylics," he said. "Gives a more even finish to the coloring. Doctors tried to sell me plastic lighting, said yellow bulbs would make me happy. Ha. This makes me happier."

"Oh, you have a medical condition? I heard about that. The onset of winter brings on the winter blues."

"Well, nowadays, everyone has to have a condition. Seasonal Affective Disorder. You can't just be depressed about it getting dark any more."

"And there was no chance of moving?" she asked sympathetically. "Further south, I mean. The daylight shift must be more temperate nearer the border?"

"To be fair, young lady, Ms. Scully, it's the decline in the light levels that brings on the disorder, so you can get the winter blues in Florida. It's your sub-conscious that notices the change in the length of the day." He chuckled to himself, like he didn't care one way or another. "I have some freshly baked bread if you'd like something to eat? "he offered.

"That does smell lovely. But, no thank-you. I won't take up too much of your time. Just a few background questions."

Kovelski turned to look back over his shoulder. "Really. I'm not going any where, not doing any thing. Take as long as you like." He cut two clumsy thick slices from the loaf and reached for the dish that contained the butter. "It's about the monster, isn't it?" he asked.

Scully stood in the doorway, and nodded coolly. "Yes. I suppose you get asked about that a lot," she said sympathetically.

Kovelski turned back slightly from buttering the bread. "Not a lot of people talk to me, Agent Scully. I'm just an ordinary old man to most of them. But the one's who walk up to me are always going to ask about the monster. It's a bit like being Neil Armstrong really. Everyone thinks it must be great, but no-one is really having a conversation with you. Or, at the very least, you can't really know."

"Fame has its drawbacks," said Scully.

Kovelski poured a large cup of coffee from the machine on the worktop. "Coffee?" he asked, proffering the steaming jug.

Scully felt herself pursing her lips. "That would be great," she conceded. Having slept badly at Mrs. Chang's guest-house, she had been keen to be up and about in the morning and had skipped breakfast of any kind.

After the second cup of coffee, Scully had explained how wonderful the trip from Albany to Lake Peary had been and given a vague explanation of the reason for her, and her colleague, traveling this far North.

"So, I heard you were quite famous for a few weeks," she began.

"Famous? It's hard to think of it in those terms." He looked genuinely hurt. "You know that Walter Stone died, right? Drowned in the lake.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I was being flippant." Scully realized that she had apologized too much in the previous half-hour and decided just to listen for a bit. "Tell me about that day."

Kovelski sat down in a large comfy armchair, placed his coffee and buttered bread on the coffee-table in front of him. Scully refused the offer to sit.

"Walter and I were best friends. Thought alike. A bit like twins. Quite like brothers." A sip of coffee. "We decided to go down to the lake with my uncle's movie camera, one of those eight millimetre things. I didn't ask permission. I didn't think he'd mind, but I didn't really think much of it." A bite of the bread. "Just took the camera."

"Where did you go with the camera? Which bit of the lake?"

"Not far from here. Just behind the airfield, if that's where you came in. There was nothing there in those days. Just piles of lumber." Kovelski stood up, wiping his mouth. "Wait a minute."

Scully frowned. Maybe she had upset Kovelski asking about the death of his childhood friend? Kovelski disappeared back into the hall and could be heard rummaging in a small closet.

"You know, maybe I could call back later, Mr Kovelski?" she called after him. "I can see this is a bad time."

Kovelski appeared back at the door, holding a surprisingly small film projector in one hand and some small, dusty film reels in the other. "How about we start by watching the real thing, and take it from there?"


	14. Chapter 14

**Roundup**

Mulder wanted to stay asleep. But someone was knocking the door.

He groaned to indicate that his visitor should leave. The door was knocked again. "Mr. Mulder, sir? Are you dressed? I'm coming in." It was Mrs. Chang, the owner of the guest-house.

He groaned again to warn of an implied state of undress. But Mrs. Chang knocked again and then the door was opened boldly. "Mr. Mulder. Time to get up. I need to clean the room." She flipped on the lights and threw a newspaper onto the bed. "Get up. Your friends are here too."

Mulder pulled the blanket up to his neck and rubbed his forehead. He realized he had a stinking head-ache. "Friends? What friends? I don't know anybody up here."

"Get up," she repeated. "Your friends from the bar. And that man from the real estate office. They're all in my lobby making a noise. Get up. Take them away." She pulled the pillow from the bed. Mulder realized she was serious about cleaning the room, with or without him in the bed.

"I need two minutes" he said. He grabbed his clothes from the floor and fled to the tiny bathroom. The bluster and promises of the previous evening were only vaguely returning to him. As he splashed water on his weary face, he heard the curtains being drawn, despite the near-night light levels outside.

"I will launder your dirty clothes," she shouted thru. "Put on clean clothes." She hammered on the door of the bathroom. "Take these. Give me those dirty clothes. Be a good boy." Mulder was a little alarmed at being patronized by this stern old lady, but he did as he was told, opened the door a tiny amount and exchanged yesterday's laundry for his own fresh clothes. "Be out in five minutes. I need to sweep the carpet. Your suit jacket is in the closet. Make sure to wear it if you are on business."

"Where's my colleague? Scully. The other agent." He tried to slap his face into action as he dressed quickly.

"She left early. She is a good police woman. Does her job properly. You should look after her instead of lying in your bed all morning."

Leaving aside the attack on his personal and professional honor, Mulder shouted thru again, finally adjusting the clip-on tie in the mirror. "I'm not here on official business. I'm just riding shotgun."

He emerged from the bathroom and smiled as angelically as he could at the bustling Mrs. Chang.

"Plenty of shotguns here in town already without you bringing one." She turned to face him. "Did you bring a gun to my house?" she challenged.

"Oh. No. No. That was just an expression. My gun is back in Albany. Here, I'm just a look-out."

Mrs Chang snorted unconvinced. Then she stared at Mulder in shock, up at his hair, then back to his face. "Did you shower? Before dressing?"

"No," he retorted. "You said you wanted me out quickly. I was only trying to help. And there are people waiting." He was burbling now.

Mrs. Chang scowled. "Get in the shower. I will send your friends outside to wait. What kind of police man are you?"

Mulder was not sure how to answer that.

:::

Although it was still definably night, the sky was only blueish-gray and it was quite easy to see the street outside the little guest-house.

"Almost time for the Sun again," said Solly. "In a few days it'll creep over the horizon for a few seconds."

Mulder stood at the top of the short wooden steps looking down on this ramshackle gathering of about twelve men in front of him. A small Ford pickup was parked carelessly at a diagonal in front of the building. Another three, much bigger, vehicles were stood up nearer the road out of town. A dreadful decision was coming back to him now.

"Let's round up a posse!" he had shouted in the bar on the previous evening. "We'll find Vern's old man in no time!" It had been an unwise, if plausible, claim.

Mulder rubbed his eyes again, still prickly from the shower. "I didn't think Vernon was taking us seriously guys. I'm happy to come searching with you. And I can call back the helicopter for a few hours. But this is a big wilderness."

Solly beckoned Mulder down the stairs. "It's not like a movie, Fox. When someone goes missing, we get together and we try to find them. We know the area. You have the tracking skills."

Mulder shrugged his shoulders, and stepped slowly down the stairs. He did like a mystery. And he was good at finding things. "We need a plan. And where's Vern?" He had come to this deep-frozen corner of Canada to look after Scully. It might be difficult to explain this development.

Solly stepped forward, clapping Mulder on the shoulder of his light green parka. "Good man, Fox. The Eskimo boys over here have a few ideas where the old man will have gone." He pointed at three or four young men who might just know how to drive, but would not have been allowed to drink liquor in most towns. They could easily be the grand-sons of the old men he had seen huddling in the bar the previous evening, although they wore the padded jackets and knitted hats of local loggers. "Vernon didn't want to wait. He liked your idea, but sleeping until midday didn't seem urgent enough for him." Mulder reflexively checked his watch. He could not believe how late it was. "We'll catch him up on the slopes."

The young man from the realtor's office was standing off to the side trying to discretely smoke a thin hand-rolled cigarette. He had not been at the bar, but Mulder remembered his name from earlier as Stephen. He caught Mulder's eye as they unfolded a large map on the hood of the pickup and nodded.

"Vern gave me the day off to help out," he said, "but unless his old man is holed up in a lake-view beach hut, I'm not going to be much use."

Mulder wondered if, after such a long wait, any of them would be of much use.


	15. Chapter 15

**News Days**

"Is there any sound?" Scully was less immersed in the projected film than she thought she would be. The small yellowish square on the bare painted wall was little more than a grainy blur.

"I'm sorry," said Kovelski. "We couldn't afford the sound microphone." He stopped the small film projector with its clicking and clattering reels. He unclipped the top reel, tightened the film on the disc and replaced it in position. "Wait a second. I'll try to make it darker."

Scully sat with a second mug of coffee losing patience. The setting up of the archaic projector had been endearing for a few minutes. It became less exciting when the wall-plug had to be changed, and also when the dusty bulb had to be replaced. All the time, Kovelski kept repeating "Wait a second" with a sort of urgency that implied his only guest might flee at any moment. Scully felt she might very well do that.

Kovelski disappeared into the hall and flipped off all the light switches. Ironically, for a town that was still in darkness at midday, the light from the street lamp and the crescent moon diffused in with little difficulty. The little apartment became a little darker as the sound of a heavy curtain was drawn in the hallway.

"You know, Sir?" Scully called out quietly, "the film has been on a lot of news reports. I know the general picture."

Kovelksi appeared back in the doorway, and stood there a little taken aback. "How many minutes?"

Scully turned and smiled, trying to be friendly and reassuring. "I have a video tape back at the guest house. My colleagues in Washington put it together for me. There are three local news reports with excerpts, and that documentary from the cable station. The documentary has most of the footage. Then there's a section which is just the complete footage. About three minutes. I don't know where that came from."

"Three minutes?" he mused, stepping forward to switch on the projector again. "That's what I gave the police after Walter disappeared. Two minutes thirty seven of footage. Plus some black frames from when I left the lens cover on at the start. About three minutes would be right. Then they gave the smaller clips to the news stations years later."

Kovelski strung the loose end of the film back thru the projector and wound it carefully onto the reception reel. He seemed to take an age and had to wind on a large amount of the film to get the tension right. "Those cartridges in the cine-camera only lasted about five minutes. At least the ones my Dad could afford."

Politely Scully watched the slightly sharper images on the wall as the film finally got going. She made a few notes, but it was exactly the piece of footage she remembered.

:::

The holder of the camera is at the edge of the lake on a sandy strip of beach. The view of the mountains opposite, covered in green trees, blurs in and out of focus. The surface of the lake is calm and blue. About a minute in to the amateur pointing and focusing, a small dark point is seen plowing thru the ripples on the surface. The camera focus is so poor and the object is so distant that the shape could be the nose of a seal or the crown of a large catfish. (Even the FBI blow-ups show only a blur.) As the shape passes out of sight behind the trees the camera is run forward to the edge of the water, but nothing more is seen. The film ends.

:::

"Can I take this? Just for tonight. It might help me to look over some of the frames." She had her hand on the film. For a second it felt like it might have some importance to her.

"Sorry. No," he replied. "I should have taken the money I've been offered over the years for that film. I could have retired somewhere warmer. Now, I just have the value of holding the film. People, monster enthusiasts, they just record what they want off the cable channel, take a picture of me in the street. The only way for me to make any money is to go to one of these things that Vern sets up. He gets the tourists up at the airport in the Summer, puts up a tent thing, a marquee, lays on a buffet for thirty dollars and lets me talk to the customers for about half an hour. I wave the film around and we show a ridiculous new videotape of me pointing at the original spot where I took the camera and holding a piece of wood that I had to say was part of Walter's boat. Vern tells them they can't get that footage anywhere else and they all seem pretty happy. It all seems a little stupid to me, but thankfully nobody asks that. I get to eat from the buffet and I make a hundred dollars." He shrugged.

Scully thought briefly about the film and the sideshow. There was nothing really that interested her here. Nothing at all suggested that this film, and indeed the disappearance, where in any way related to the current attacks on animals.

"I'll be on my way then," she said. "You should think of writing a book, Mr Kovelski. Even just what you've said to me is worth putting in print."

He nodded. "Not a bad idea. Vern has always promised to write it up for me. He has a way with words. But he's too busy right now. Too much money in the realtor's. Too much time looking after the family."

Scully put on her heavy coat and turned to leave. "When did you get the film back from the police? I know that evidence can circulate for a long time. Sometimes it gets lost. They must have made copies for the news too. I'm surprised you got it back at all."

Kovelski nodded sadly. "Oh, you've got it right there. I never saw the film again. They never got back to me at all. The film I gave them was my own copy. One I made in my own dark room."

"You're lucky you made the three minute copy of the film," said Scully.

"I don't really think of that film as lucky," he sighed. It was clearly all still too much for him. "Taking that cine-camera down to the lake was one of the worst ideas I ever had."

Scully left. She was already wondering what was on the remaining minutes of the film.


	16. Chapter 16

**Strength In Words**

Stokes held a plastic ice-pack to her left cheek. She was struggling to keep her head up straight to look dignified. But her chin kept dropping onto her chest. The muscles in her neck felt torn and weak.

Weed laughed at her across the planning table. He was marking the latest dives on the wall map. He had poignantly placed a red marker on the spot near the French wreck where she had been diverting herself. "Someone looks tired. Are you exhausted from all that time under water?" She ignored his question. "Ms. Stokes? I'm talking to you."

"It's just pain, Weed." She frowned, but had to keep her face tilted downward. "It's not something that bothers me. I'll get over it soon." She could meet his theatrical gaze on most occasions, but today she could not even look up at the strip lights on the cabin roof. "Or maybe, I'll go home for a rest."

"You should have stayed away from that wreck. Like I said." Weed seemed almost pleased that he had been proved right. "Those currents aren't predictable. And with someone of your experience..." He paused. "Even with your experience, it would have been dangerous." He placed a green triangle off to the side, in the margin of the map. It joined a first green triangle to indicate a diver out of action.

Stokes waited before responding. "It was just a big bit of debris. But it was swirling around, like you said," she lied.

"I was worried," he giggled childishly, "that the monster might have got you."

Now she tilted her eyebrows up, swivelled her eyes to throw at least some kind of glare from her side of the conversation.

"Just like the saucer, you mean?" She could not help but smile.

"The saucer was hit by rocks," Weed answered almost instantly. "You saw the scrapes. Big scores along the top of the shell." He pointed out of the cabin window by way of emphasis. A couple of snake-lights outlined the protective shell of the mini-sub, hung up by a rigging in the center of the camp.

"You want to joke that I was hit by some ancient sea monster, but you can't see those scrapes on the top of the mini-sub? They look like teeth marks to most normal people." Now she gestured vaguely out of the plastic window. The flat shimmering oval was scored with great parallel lines, some thick, some thin.

"I'm just joking with you, Ms. Stokes. Can't you tell when I'm telling a joke by now? But the boss almost got killed in the sub. That's not funny is it? He could have suffocated, or drowned."

"I agree. It's very serious. Why didn't you send him off to a proper hospital, even just for tests? All we can do is give him more coffee and and check his B.P. every half-hour."

"He'll be fine. We just need to finish checking the equipment, then we can finish up here and leave. You'll get back to your big-city caffe latte soon enough. Vauxhall told me himself to get on with testing the equipment."

"If this whiplash doesn't cool off, I'll be out of action for sure." Stokes tilted her head back to its most comfy position. "Then you'll only have one person left to do the deeper dives."

Weed said nothing. Perhaps he was worried about plunging into the depths of the lake himself. In all the months he had been on site, Stokes had noticed him volunteering for the command seat on many occasions and only pulling on a dive-suit for the shoreline sweeps or inspecting the saucer sub in the dock.

"I'll step up if I have to. Don't you worry. I've done more dives at depth than you would know." He was unconvincing. "A lot of them weren't even commercial. At depth for fun." His eyes flitted back to the chart. There was one green triangle left on the chart, fixed firmly in the area circled to mark the compound.

"Until that shell is fixed we can't run the sub either," Stokes noted. "And unless you have some fancy panel beating kit left over from repairing a battleship, that shell is going to stay like that."

"We don't need that particular shell," Weed replied.

Stokes closed her eyes, letting herself relax. "Did you order a spare? Something like that doesn't just sit on a shelf at Wal-Mart."

Weed turned to face her. "Stokes. You don't know everything about this mission." She wondered if he was going to reveal something to her. He looked like he had a secret, and she wanted to know it.

"I know from the records you file with the trust that you're running it too quick and too cheap to be plausible." She kept her eyes facing down. She needed to share something with him to persuade him to talk. "It's like you don't even need the money from the research grant."

One of the Panama twins knocked impatiently on the cabin door, and stepped in. "Mr. Weed sir? We have an intruder. Just one man I think." Stokes gritted her teeth.

Weed focused easily on the new situation. "Yeah? Is he a local? Or is he proper trouble?" His eyes flickered to the steel cabinets at the back of the cabin. Stokes could almost read his mind, see him desperate to pull out a hand-gun.

The twin shook his head. "Probably a local. A pretty stupid one, I think. There was a face in the trees. I could see it thru the low-light goggles. Although it wasn't a man's face."

Weed's eyebrows arched. "Not a man's face? What does that mean?"

The twin laughed. "Don't worry. It's just someone messing around. Must have got drunk and wandered up from the town. He was wearing a big old wooden mask. Trying to look like an animal. "

Weed raised his eyebrows. "Oh, like an Indian mask? You know those Native American things we bought in Vancouver."

"I don't remember us paying for much in Vancouver," the twin smirked, "but - yeah - one of those traditional masks. Too heavy to really fight in. Just for show. Now, Central America, that's different. We prefer face painting. Easier to fight while your foe is staring at your decoration."

Weed nodded. "Don't make too much fuss. Keep an eye on whoever this joker is. But I'm just a bit worried how far away from town he is. He must have a vehicle. It would be too far to walk."

"He won't get away from us." He nodded reassuringly to himself. "But I'll do a search for a vehicle. "

"Good idea. Call it in if you need any kind of back-up." The twin left, the door closing heavily behind him.

Weed turned back to the wall map, tapping various points. "Injuries. Equipment damage. Intruders. We don't want things to start falling apart now."

"I report to Vauxhall. We both do. We should get a decision from him."


	17. Chapter 17

**Waggons**

Scully was getting hungry as she made her way back along the track. Although she had wanted to head straight back to the guest-house for a dim-sum lunch, she had turned to take the path toward the lake. It was an opportunity to look over the water in the dim night.

As she made her way up the path, the row of vehicles caught up with her. There were two close-topped jeeps and a small truck that would have been useful on logging runs although it would never have been able to tow much.

Scully stepped up onto the hard packed snow heaped beside the road to let the vehicles pass. She looked briefly over the lake straining to see the few lights on the far shore, then realized the small convoy had stopped.

"I hope no-one's looking for directions," she thought to herself.

The window of the lead vehicle rolled down and Mulder leaned out. He was wearing a heavy scarf wrapped several times around his lower face, and a badly shaped ex-army winter hat.

Scully squinted into the headlamps. "What are you doing up there?"

From the confined space of the window, Mulder shrugged. "It looks like I might have agreed to lead the search for Vern's old man." He did not seem at all disturbed by this revelation. "I'm not much of a leader. But I like to look for things."

"Vern?" she questioned. "I've heard that name. Is that the same Vern who owns the realtors? We were in his office last night." Her feet were starting to get cold from standing still. The boots she had brought were decoratively warm around the sides but too thin on the sole to be comfortable.

"Yes. Do you know him?"

"It seems he has a hand in a lot of things around here." Scully sighed. "You do know that you have no jurisdiction here. Missing persons is not a Federal issue, even if we were back home. Escaped prisoners and fugitives are for the U.S. Marshals."

Mulder looked hurt and pouted his lower lip. "Can't you see me as a Federal Marshal?"

Scully was not amused. "I hear the entrance exams are easier, so that might be an option. But, really, are you going to find this old man in the dark, in the wild, with just a couple of eager lumberjacks?"

Mulder was a little annoyed now. "Well hold on there. They say there's probably only one route he's taking, up to a traditional pitching ground." He was talking sensibly now. "We'll go up the far side of the lake; take a look around the shoreline; then come back here. We'll be back soon enough. Probably late this evening." He thought briefly. "Maybe in the morning at the latest."

Scully nodded approvingly, but still sceptical. "Okay. But I don't think I want to stay here much longer, Mulder. I'm not really sure why I came now and I'm having second thoughts. When I think about it, this place is just dead animals and, well, people with problems."

"You don't want to say 'crazy', do you?" Mulder looked smug, tilting his head.

"Since at least four of them can hear our conversation, I wanted to be a bit less rude." She looked up and back along the vehicles. A few of the men were now leaning out of their vehicles. "And you seem to have encouraged everyone with a drink problem to bring whatever guns they could get their hands on."

"Don't worry. They're all friends now. And I remember calling everyone 'crazy' last night. That much I remember."

Scully raised her eyebrows. "What did you say about why you're here?" she whispered. "Did you mention why I'm here?"

"I said you were into taxidermy. No-one batted an eyelid. They get all sorts up here."

There was an impatient beeping of the horn from the third vehicle.

"We'd better get on," said Mulder. "I think Solly from the bar has gotten a bit bored with all the small town chatter. He really wants to get his teeth into an old-fashioned posse. Brought his own six-gun and everything."

"Let's just be careful about what we say here, Mulder." Scully realized this was all becoming complicated. "I still have friends I like. I don't want to get them into trouble."

"I'm sure I should be disappointed by that comment, but I'll be back late, like I said. Don't worry. It's an old man in the snow. What could go wrong?" Mulder raised his eyebrows.

Scully raised her eyebrows. "Should I ask if you've been given any of this hardware to look after? We don't have jurisdiction and we also don't have permits for weapons."

"Don't ask, don't tell," he replied.

"Take care," she said warily, standing back from the car.

"Always," he winked. He banged the side of the car. "Waggons roll!"

:::

As the rear lights of the last vehicle disappeared into the light mist, Scully paused to think. This was all getting way out of hand. Mulder had tagged along on the scant information she had provided and was now playing a manly game of find the wild goose. Of course, Mulder's whole career was based on finding the odd and the impossible. Unfortunately her own career seemed to be heading the same way.

She turned to continue back to the town. It was way past lunch and she was way past hungry. She was contemplating what might be in the steamer baskets when she heard a crashing above her in the tallest of the trees, smaller branches cracking and larger boughs creaking. Then the crashing became louder, accompanied by a tearing of cloth and the cry of fleeing birds.

She did not see what fell from the sky, but it clanged to the ground beside her in a cloud of leaves, branches and fabric. Scully fell off to the side, her hands over her head, letting the snow piled at the side of the road protect her.

She kept her eyes closed until the crashing stopped. "Time to look" she thought. But she kept her eyes closed.


	18. Chapter 18

**Crash, Splash**

Scully kept her hand over head and her face in the snow. When the crashing and flapping noises had subsided she let her eyelids relax and peered between her eyelashes like a child pretending to sleep. The road was quiet again, the tire tracks in the snow disturbed only by big coniferous twigs and small branches. She lifted her face from the snow and opened her eyes fully, then directed by the flapping from above, stared up into the trees. Highlighted by moon light around the edges, the canvas of a giant parachute hung torn into long strips and swirled around the trees with the light wind winding it tighter and tighter until it was totally snared.

She stood up, brushing the snow from her coat and rubbing the soreness on her scuffed face. Following the direction of the hanging lines, she stepped up to the edge of the lake and looked down into the water. She could see a partly submerged metal canister that had obviously been attached to the parachute until a few moments earlier.

The canister was small, a bit like an early shiny chrome space capsule, like something Soviet Russia would have used to send a dog into space, but with more of an American design.

"A weather balloon?" she speculated. By what chance had a package of instruments crashed down into the trees above her and then into the lake beside her? It seemed incredible.

Holding onto some longer twigs she stepped down to the edge of the lake, fixing her boots in the mud. The canister was only a few feet into the water, so she tried to reach out to it without entering the water. It started to turn slowly in the water, which allowed her to lean forward and grab hold of the access plate on the side.

A faint tapping noise from within the capsule began as it floated onto the mud. Scully's forearm twitched reflexively and she let the capsule stop as she realized that it was not just a mechanical noise. There was something moving inside the capsule.

:::

After a few seconds pausing and thinking, Scully fetched out a small utility knife from her coat. She stepped into the water and grasped the top of the capsule then pried open the access plate. A little voice echoed out of the opening. "_¿Socorro?_"

:::

Scully could not look as Pérez pulled himself free of the capsule. After a bizarre and athletic fifteen minutes of contortion, Pérez stopped at the edge of the water and dusted himself off. "Where are we?" he asked.

"Carlos? We... we're about five minutes from the town. But what are you doing here?"

Pérez rubbed his arms. "That was frightening. And I'm bruised all over."

Scully helped him scramble up the muddy bank up into the relative shelter of the trees. "What are you doing here? Why did you come in that ridiculous capsule?"

Pérez caught his breath. He was shivering. "I had to take what I could. The people I took it from have some strange ideas on intellectual property and design."

Scully looked him over briefly. His eyes looked bloodshot and his skin tone was paler than she remembered, but he seemed far from shock. "We need to get you cleaned up. The guest house has a shower."

He shook his head vigorously, his breathing evening up. "No. There's no time for that. I have to get to the diving camp. Where are we in relation to that?" He looked around vaguely.

Scully shook her head amazed. "The diving compound? It's over there. I think that's it directly across the other side of the lake. You can just make out the lights." Her thoughts were confused. She wanted to answer his question, but she wanted him to answer hers first.

Pérez began to focus, thinking on his feet. "I have to get over there, quietly, but quickly," he concluded.

Scully was now suspicious. "But don't they know you? I thought you were well known here by everybody?"

Pérez turned to fix his gaze on Scully. "They knew me in a former life, Dana. I've had a few bad lunches since then. Made a few bad decisions. Last week is history to them."

"Is that why you arrived in such a dangerous way?"

"I didn't want to be seen. I couldn't let myself be seen. But I had no way of steering once I released the 'chutes."

"How far did you come in that thing? Look there's the edge of the town. It's only a block from there to Mrs. Chang's guest-house."

"It wasn't far. I was pushed out of a B-52 over Calgary. Trajectory did the rest. Mrs. Chang? Have you had lunch yet?"

Scully realized this was perhaps the one thing that could have kept him from jumping into the lake and swimming over there that very second. "No, not yet. I was on my way when you... dropped in."

He thought carefully about the prospect of lunch. "Did she say she was going to make dumplings? All I've had to eat since Galveston was a couple of MREs. Disgusting. Masquerading as 'Italian' and 'Mexican' meals. I'd almost rather have the poison soup from the Caribbean again."

"You're not making sense. Did someone try to poison you?"

"It was all a mistake. This could have worked out so much better for all of us."

"How did you find me? You didn't just drop within a hundred yards of me by coincidence."

"A lot of it was guesswork. As I said, steering after the 'chutes deployed was never going to be subtle."

"What did you do?" She looked up and down her winter-wear, looked up at the light canopy of trees. "Am I laser-painted? Tell me."

"You're the F.B.I. Agent, Dana." He was going to maintain the drama, but gave in quickly. "Someone in Norad found your cell-phone for me. I just aimed for the nearest bit of blue water beside you."

Scully opened her mouth to speak, then held her breath. "You could have landed on top of me with that capsule. I would have been killed. There were twenty people on the road beside me fifteen minutes ago, including a work friend. Any one of them could have been hit and killed."

"How long ago were they here? Could they have seen me?"

"Most of them were taking this darkness thing a little too seriously. They wouldn't have seen anything." She gestured around her at the greyness. "I can see just fine."

Pérez looked around him too, concern on his face. "That is the main thing that worries me."


End file.
